USDA Weekly Crop Progress Report - 7% of Corn, 3% of Soybeans Planted; Winter Wheat Condition Rated 27% Good to Excellent

OMAHA (DTN) -- Cold and snow over much of the Northern Plains, wet conditions in the Eastern Corn Belt and drought in parts of the Midwest, West and Southern Plains continued to keep planters parked and hampered the development of winter wheat last week, USDA NASS reported in its weekly Crop Progress report on Monday.

CORN

-- Planting progress: 7% nationwide as of Sunday, April 24, up just 3 percentage points from the previous week. Current progress is 9 percentage points behind last year's 16% and 8 percentage points behind the five-year average of 15%.

-- Crop development: 2% of corn was emerged as of Sunday, 1 percentage point behind both last year's and the five-year average of 3%.

-- Notable states: Texas again led the way in corn-planting progress at 69%, up 5 percentage points from the previous week. States making the most progress last week were North Carolina, which jumped ahead 21 percentage points to reach 60% complete; Tennessee, moving ahead 10 percentage points to reach 17%; Kansas and Nebraska, both progressing 8 percentage points to 21% and 10%, respectively; and Missouri, which moved ahead 6 percentage points to reach 10% complete.

States currently the furthest behind their average pace include Tennessee at 20 percentage points behind its five-year average; Illinois and Missouri, both at 19 percentage points behind average; and Kentucky at 18 percentage points behind average.

SOYBEANS

-- Planting progress: 3% nationwide as of Sunday, up just 2 percentage points from the previous week. That was 4 percentage points behind last year's 7% and 2 percentage points behind the five-year average of 5%.

-- Notable states: Louisiana and Mississippi made the most planting progress last week with gains of 16 percentage points and 14 percentage points, respectively.

As with corn planting, Illinois was one of the states furthest behind its five-year average with just 1% of soybeans planted, 7 percentage points behind its five-year average of 8%.

WINTER WHEAT

-- Crop development progress: 11% of the winter wheat crop was headed nationwide as of Sunday. That's 5 percentage points behind last year's 16% and 8 percentage points behind the five-year average of 19%.

-- Notable states: None of top winter-wheat-producing state Kansas' crop was heading as of Sunday, according to NASS. That is 7 percentage points behind the state's five-year average of 7%. In Oklahoma, only 6% of wheat was heading, 32 percentage points behind the five-year average of 38%. Texas winter wheat development was also considerably behind normal at 45% headed, 15 percentage points behind the average of 60%.

-- Crop condition: Nationwide, winter wheat was rated 27% good to excellent, falling 3 percentage points from 30% the previous week. The current rating is well below last year's good-to-excellent rating of 49%.

"The winter wheat crop's current good-to-excellent rating is the lowest on record for this time of the year," said DTN Senior Analyst Dana Mantini. "That portion of the crop rated very poor to poor is 39%, 2 percentage points higher than last week. Major producer Kansas is 26% good to excellent with 36% poor to very poor. Oklahoma and Texas are at 16% and 8% good to excellent, respectively. Seventy-eight percent of the Texas crop is rated very poor to poor.